Book 2

Fire in the Head

by Tom Cowan

I chose this as my second book because, like with Pema Chodron, this is a book I've been curious about for a long time. I've heard many great things about it from a few different people, and my former boss thought it was a great introduction to both shamanic and celtic practices. I've always been drawn to shamanism and also to celtic mythology, so I thought this would be a great book for me to finally read.

I just put this book on hold at the library today, so I'm hoping I can go and pick it up after work tomorrow (March 10), and I'm hoping to start reading it sometime this week.

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Update on March 14
I only started reading this today, because I wanted to give myself a bit of a break before switching gears over to this. My option so far...it's not bad. I'm finding it to be a bit more scholarly than I was expecting, but at the same time, it's not overly dry, which is nice.

I haven't gotten very far (just to the end of chapter 1), but so far it's been about how the Celts and their spiritual experiences can be related to Shamanism. He's making a lot of points on how the two coincide, which is actually great, because I've never thought to put the two side-by-side like that. When you do, it's pretty easy to see the overlap. The part that really showed that to me was the "being taken by the faeries" and links between "being called to be a shaman" (that's how I'm wording it, now how Tom Cowan does). I'm interested to get more into the book and see how things progress.

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Update on March 16
So far I'm enjoying this book, which is proving to be more informative for me than the last one. It's not that I didn't get anything out of Pema's book - quite the contrary, actually - but in terms of Core Shamanistic and Celtic beliefs I'm learning more about them than I did about Buddhist beliefs. I knew a bit about both before I started reading this, having been to a few talks and done a bit of research a while ago, but it's been a nice refresher.

I find it interesting to see the connections he's making between Shamanism and Celtic beliefs, and I can easily follow his thought process. It's kind of funny to me that I never thought to make some of these connections before, but when he lays them out like he does the similarities are uncanny. I also found it really interesting to read about the why skulls, cauldrons, and wells are so popular throughout Celtic designs.

I found pretty much all of Chapter 3 really insightful, particularly the bit about Samhain (and Beltane), tricksters, and the instances of triads. Talking about Halloween, he said that:
- It "is a night that falls in neither the old year, nor the new one. It is a "time outside of time"...we are reminded that doorways are open, thresholds are bridgeable, and the ordinary and non ordinary intermingle".
- It is a time when "the present and future merge and what lies ahead can be seen in the present moment".
- We might feel disoriented on these days and experience a strange suspension of time (November 1 and May 1)

I find these things all interesting, as I'd never thought about these holidays in this way before. I mean, I knew about the veils being thin, and a lot of the other stuff he mentions, but the idea that the day is an in-between day is a new concept for me.

He also talks about tricksters and fools, and what he said about them also really sort of opened my eyes to the roles they play in mythology and various belief systems. I'm a bit more...understanding...towards them now.

So yeah, I'm still enjoying things. I feel like it's going to take me a bit longer to get through this book than the last. I also feel like I'm slower reading this for some reason. Either way, I've got 2 weeks to read it before it's due back to the library, so hopefully I can finish it before then.

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Update on March 21
This week hasn't been great for me in that I've barely been home long enough to eat and sleep, and therefore I haven't been able to get much reading done. So with that in mind, the chapter that I'm currently reading is talking about music and how it features in the Celtic mythos. Up to this point in the chapter, I haven't found anything particularly striking with me, but I thought the idea of a lorica or breastplate was really neat (it's a protection spell). I also thought the bit about how birds feature into both Celtic and Shamanic beliefs was interesting. So yeah, not much to report here at the moment because I've been busy "being an adult with many important things to do". Here's hoping I can get more reading done over the weekend.

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Update on March 27

So the last few chapters I've read have featured the importance of nature to the Celtic peoples. Nothing was really new to me in this, but it was still good to read none the less, and there were a lot of things he said that got me thinking in different ways. 

For example:

- many children's games were thought to be protection spells, like ring around the rosy. 

- people who have physical ailments (missing a limb or sense {sight, hearing}) are "not in this world as we are. They see and experience things differently, and we do not share in their vision". I thought this was really interesting and makes total sense to me as to why in some cultures they're automatically elevated to Shaman status. 

- storytelling as a sacred act that "allows the sacred mysteries to break through into ordinary consciousness"

He also brought up a few things that really struck a chord with me...like:

- "As so often happens, strangers to a culture are blinded by their own values and assumptions, and fail to appreciate what the native population holds dear. It is easy to destroy what we either misunderstand or do not understand". He was talking specifically about Christians and how they annexed the older pagan beliefs, but I think this rings true in a lot of ways to a lot of other things.

- "Many people are so caught up in their own lives that they do not send their love up to the sun, out to the ocean, and in to the earth." This was actually said by Matsuwa, a Huichol Shaman. He then advises that we devise ceremonies to send our love into the 5 directions because doing so "brings life force into you" - it connects us to the inner lives of the elements and keeps our hearts sweet with divine influence". I think this is something we don't do enough, whether or not you "send your love" to the 5 directions or, just to one deity, or whatever it is you believe. On the whole, I don't think we give enough thanks, so I think starting to make a practice like this would be beneficial in a lot of ways.

Something that furthers that last point is that "the ancient Celts did not feel at one with the universe if they did not make offerings to the gods and goddesses of their local regions". I think what I take away from this is the importance of locality in all of this. It's all well and good to make offerings to "the bigger picture" so-to-speak, but what about those local to your area? I'm sure not everyone believes that there are local so-called "spirits", but why can't there be? Anyway, just food for thought.

He then mentions Serge King and his thoughts on urban shamanism. I feel like I should look for a copy of his book (Urban Shamanism), just based on what Cowan quotes from him..."as urban shamans, we need the forest or desert to connect with a universe larger than we know, and to discover what kinds of beings we are (or become) when we leave our familiar civilized surroundings". 

So yeah, I think this is another book that would be great to actually own a copy of, for me anyway. There's lots of stories that he mentions, and if for no other reason, this would be a handy book to own just to reference those. 

A lot of what he's been talking about thus far isn't really news to me, like I've said, but the way in which he's framing everything is, and so for that reason, I feel like I'm taking a lot from it. 

I still have a few chapters left, but I'm hoping to be done by the time I do my next update.

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Update on March 31

As fate would have it, I came down with a head cold yesterday. So, when I woke up this morning feeling like ass, I decided to stay home and try and kick it before it gets bad...which translated into me having time to finish my book, so here I am! 

This last "section" mainly focused on the importance of death, to put it not so eloquently. It started off with Cowan explaining the grail story in a few different ways. That was actually really interesting to me, because I'd never really read or heard a "real" grail story. Sure I've seen Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail, and also The Da Vinci Code, but somehow I have a feeling those grail stories aren't quite the ones I just read about. 

He then goes on to talk about near death experiences and the similarities in a lot of the accounts. I find it really interesting to know that there are so many similarities...it's gotta mean something, right?

It also hit home when he said "our own culture attempts to deny death and dying and to shield real death experiences from our children. As a society we are unique in this aversion to discussing and dealing with death openly and consciously." It's kind of funny. I took a class on death and dying in university, and I was really hoping it would go in more detail about how other culture's view it, rather than just giving you ways to deal with the death of a loved one. Apparently I got the "bad" professor for that class. At the same time though, what Cowan is saying is very true. We're not really taught how to cope, so in a weird way there is a need for the kind of class I took.

By the time I was nearly done reading, I was notching that I was making comparisons between Buddhism and Shamanism, especially in these following passages:

"By disentangling the soul from the body, and by isolating the components of life into separate species, we are not faced solely with a chaotic swirl of unrelated parts, but with the opportunity to experience what psychologists call the "ocean feeling" of being one with All That Is."

"By experiencing distinct pieces of life, we become more acutely aware of the greater picture."

To me, this parallels why Buddhist's meditate, and the feelings they try to convey when talking about what it means to reach Nirvana. I find it so interesting that you have two paths, seemingly so different from one another, with such similar "goals". 

Anyway, I really enjoyed this book, and like Pema Chodron's, I'm hoping to pick up a copy in the near future. I think it's a great place to start if you're curious about the origins of Celtic beliefs and also Shamanism, however, it doesn't really go all that in-depth on either topic. It's more of a general overview. It was great for me, being interested in knowing more about Celtic belief, and being already a bit familiar with Shamanism. Two thumbs up!